Mirrors are not the only thing an HDSLR shooter doesn’t need. Here’s a reason to think differently about depth of field.
You can download the file and watch it in full quality.
Over the last months Johnnie Behiri used the Nikon’s new flagship HDSLR, the D4, to shoot this image video about the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.
While some few shots were done on other HDSLR’s the majority came from the D4 and in particular from the D4’s 2.7x crop mode.
What is that mode?
It only uses a 1920×1080 pixels crop of the sensor. The result is much more depth of field (less blurry background) but also a very crisp, moire and aliasing free image.

It’s the time of the new generation of HDSLR cameras. Nikon and Canon are in battle, the 5D mark III and the Nikon D800 are coming, the Nikon D4 is here and shortly the Canon 1DX will follow.
Guest post by: Johnnie Behiri
For the last 3 weeks I’ve been producing/directing/filming an image video for one of the finest universities in the world. The university of music and preforming arts situated in Vienna, Austria (link)
When writing the concept to the image video together with my co-director Tobias federsel, we decided to put the teachers and students at the heart of the film. There is nothing like convincing statements from dedicated teachers and satisfied students to pass the unique massage this university brings.

2 minutes shot during the daytime (above)
2 minutes shot during the nighttime (below):
Guest post by: Johnnie Behiri
I was lucky enough having the Nikon D4 (pre production model) for 24 hours. My original plan was to shoot a short feature with it and by doing so, check its strength and weaknesses, but the short notice confirming having the camera left me no choice but run a very “simple test” one that might not satisfy all….
I’ve divided the test to “night and day shots”. Both videos are NOT color corrected. I wanted to share with the community what I got out of the camera.
For my eyes, up to ISO 1000 the camera produces clean video images. Surprise, the “rolling shutter” effect is almost a thing of the past!
Obviously having the camera for such a short time did not allow me to master it. I truly hope some of the short comings I discovered are due to my lack of “Nikon experience”. Hopefully those are not “short comings” after all….
My decision was to shoot with 2 prime lenses. The reason was to see how useful and functional the “crop” function is. So everything you see (but the Capoeira shots) was done with the Nikon 20mm + 85mm lenses.
What to like about this camera?

Well, it is a never ending story, but this camera truly deserves our attention:
The newly announced Nikon D4 features the following specs:
Multiple frame rates. (24,25,30) in full HD 50-60 in 720p
Headphone jack (!)
Full audio manual control
Uncompressed 8 bit 4:2:2 clean feed video out of the HDMI (1080p or 1080i yet to be confirmed)
Simultaneous live view + monitor output
Wireless/wire remote video start
Greatly reduced moire and aliasing
Recording video in full HD but in cropped mode (similar to ETC mode in Panasonic GH2)
36x24mm sensor (same as 5D markII)
1:1 pixel crop modeDiscuss the Nikon D4 in our dedicated cinema5D forums:
It’s available for preorder on B&H! $6k
The image below is a screenshot of a video shot on the Nikon D4. It’s a nice little docu short that portaits three extreme sports soloists. Click the image to check out the HD version in full screen:
Check out the Nikon Press Release.

If you’ve been involved with HDSLR a bit then you know that Nikon hasn’t had a very big piece of the cake. Mainly due to bad compression formats their cameras weren’t used for video that much. With Canon, Sony and Panasonic taking most of the opportunity lately everybody’s wondering if Nikon has any products that can hold up against the competition.
Well the yet unannounced Nikon D4 could be hitting the nail on the head. Nikon Rumors posted an article saying that the D4 would have “Uncompressed video out through the HDMI port“.
Uncompressed HDMI out would be amazing because in conjunction with a harddisk recorder such as the Ninja it could turn the DSLR into a powerful high quality video camera.
Is it true? We’ll see when the camera is announced. According to Nikon Rumors the “(…) rating on those specs is 90% which means this is the real deal with maybe some small details being wrong possibly due to wrong translation.”
via nikonrumors, via canonrumors, thanks Paul